


Earthed

by Jadzia_Bear



Category: The Martian (2015)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, First Meetings, Fluff, Trapped In Elevator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 17:57:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10366248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzia_Bear/pseuds/Jadzia_Bear
Summary: "Oh no, I did not spend a million years stuck on Mars just to come back to Earth and get stuck in a fucking elevator. Especially not after I just made things weird with the pretty girl in here," Mark muttered as he tried to pry the doors open. This was not the first meeting Mindy had imagined.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Britt1975](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britt1975/gifts).



> You can thank/blame britt for this one. It NEVER would have occurred to me to write this pairing without her encouragement/enabling. But I'm so glad she did, because this movie is amazing and well worth the re-watch I did in the course of writing this fic, plus the characters are utterly adorable. Sorry not sorry for the 'stuck in the elevator' trope :P

The elevator doors pinged open and Mindy zombie-shuffled inside, disposable coffee cup clutched in one hand. A familiar face entered just before the doors closed.

She responded on autopilot. "Hey," she murmured, wiggling a few fingers in a half-hearted wave. Any more enthusiasm than that would have been downright uncivilized for seven-thirty in the morning.

The familiar brows quirked. "I'm sorry, have we met?" asked—her half-asleep brain finally shifted into gear— _Mark Watney: intergalactic hero_.

Or more specifically, Mark Watney: the man her life had revolved around for years now, despite the fact that they'd never met in person. Through a pre-caffeine fog she’d failed to realise that the face in question was familiar not because it belonged to a work colleague, but because it was the face of the Biggest Celebrity on Earth (albeit only recently back on Earth).

Mindy resisted the urge to smack herself in the forehead. Gravity pressed down on her as the elevator rose, making her feel funny in the stomach.

"Um, no, actually," she replied. "My name's Mindy Park, I'm one of the SatCom engineers who was replying to your messages—"

"Mindy!" he beamed. Jesus Christ, how was his smile even more charming in person? This was one display of early-morning enthusiasm she could be persuaded to forgive. "You're on my list of people to thank. I hear you were the first one to figure out I was still alive. Can I hug you? I'm gonna hug you."

She barely got out a 'sure' before she found herself being wrapped up in a big, warm Watney hug. Her right hand was busy keeping her coffee safe from the cuddly ambush, but when she laid her left hand on his back she was grateful to find that she couldn't feel the angular bumps of bones under not enough flesh. The _Hermes_ crew must have done a good job of feeding him up on the trip home.

His hair tickled her ear and the clean scent of his cologne filled her nostrils. God, this felt better than it had any right to, being able to experience just how safe and alive he was in such a tactile way after months on end of feeling so helpless.

All too soon, he let her go.

"Sorry, was that weird?" He tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans with a self-conscious smile. "I've been hugging a lot of people since I got back. Might have gotten a little trigger-happy."

Her stomach was feeling funny again, but this time it wasn't because of the elevator.

"No, it's fine," she assured him. 

With a disturbing crunch, the elevator ground to a halt. Mark's head snapped towards the doors.

"The fuck?" Mindy murmured, pulling out her phone.

Mark jabbed the emergency call button. "Oh no, I did not spend a million years stuck on Mars just to come back to Earth and get stuck in a fucking elevator. Especially not after I just made things weird with the pretty girl in here," he griped to no one in particular as he tried to pry the doors open.

He thought she was pretty.

They got a response from the emergency call button before she could get onto anyone with her phone. The bored-sounding guy on the other end assured them the problem would be rectified as soon as possible. He warned them not to try and fix it themselves (he must have dealt with engineers stuck in elevators before) and to sit down while they waited, in case of any unexpected elevator movements.

"That's not at all disconcerting," Mindy muttered.

She lowered herself and her latte to the floor, back against the wall. Mark heaved a sigh and did the same. She fired off a text to her supervisor about the delay, then took a long sip of her drink.

"So, Mindy Park," Mark mused, resting his forearms on his bent knees and lacing his fingers together. "I know it sounds weird, but after—what, thousands?—of messages back and forth, I kind of feel like I know you." If he didn't want her falling completely in love with him, he was going to have to do something about that warmth in his eyes. "Crazy, huh?"

"No, I know what you mean." She rubbed her thumb back and forth over the seam of the disposable cup. "When you got in the elevator I kind of forgot for a second that we've only exchanged interplanetary text messages, we haven’t actually _met_."

"Don't underestimate those messages," Mark said. "Remember that time you sent me all the lyrics to Mambo No. 5 one line at a time because I had the tune stuck in my head but I couldn't remember the words?" She snorted softly at the memory. "Or that night you kept me distracted from a sandstorm by getting me to rank all the Star Trek movies from best to worst?” It had been a really bad storm. She’d made him justify every single one of his answers, just to give him something to do. “Or the day after my potato crop got obliterated and you stayed with me for hours, even though there was nothing to say?”

That had been one of the worst days of the whole ordeal. After sharing her condolences and assuring him they’d come up with something (even though she had no idea whether they even could), what else could she say? But she hadn’t wanted to leave him alone and he hadn’t wanted to be left alone, so she’d just sat there with him for the rest of the day. Every now and then one of them would type ‘Still there?’ and the other would respond with ‘Still here.’

He blinked a few too many times. “That stuff was my lifeline." His voice broke on the last word, making her heart lurch in her chest.

She set her latte carefully on the floor. "My turn to make things weird." She scooted over until they were side by side, then slipped her arm through his.

He dragged a hand over his face and sighed, settling in against her side. "Thanks. The NASA psychs have got their work cut out for them," he said with a rueful smile. She hugged his arm a little tighter.

They stayed like that for a while, in what Mindy hoped was a comfortable silence, until Mark eventually broke it.

"You know, you don't look anything at all like I pictured you."

"How did you picture me?" she asked, intrigued.

He shrugged. "In your forties, black hair, lots of piercings." His mouth quirked. "Green eyebrows."

Her lips curled into a smile. "Sorry to disappoint."

He turned his head to look at her. "Mindy, you are the opposite of a disappointment."

Those expressive blue eyes stayed locked on hers. His side rose and fell with each breath, brushing against her arm. He was so solid and alive and _here_. Potential energy thrummed in the air between them, like an electrostatic charge begging to be earthed.

Those blue eyes were still looking at her like she was the only thing on the planet.

She swallowed. "Mark? Can I ... kiss you right now?"

"Please," he breathed.

When their lips met, it was almost with a sense of relief, as if being parted from each other was an unnatural state that was finally being rectified.

For the longest time it was just the simple press of lips on lips, dry and warm. She eased her arm out from where it was wrapped around his so she could turn herself towards him, and he took the opportunity to do the same. He rested a hand lightly on her upper arm, his thumb skimming back and forth over the thin fabric of her sweater. Wanting to touch him but not quite sure where would be appropriate, she laid a hand on his chest. The warmth of his skin radiated through the soft material of his navy t-shirt.

It hardly even felt real, but at the same time it felt like nothing else existed outside of that moment in space and time. Then his lips began to move. The frontal lobes that had earned Mindy her two PhDs promptly short-circuited, leaving her to drown in a sea of blissful sensation.

She parted her lips, welcoming the warm, wet glide of his soft lips over hers. When she flicked the tip of her tongue against his upper lip, he hummed with pleasure. The hand on her arm squeezed, then slid up to cup her jaw.

She probed a little deeper into the heat of his mouth and he hummed again, then returned the favour. She trailed her fingers up over his broad shoulder and the soft skin of his neck until she could run the pad of her thumb over the almost imperceptible bristles on his cheek.

The elevator jerked, jolting them apart, and began to rise once more. It completed the last couple of floors of its journey, then calmly slid its doors open as if nothing out of the ordinary had even happened.

Mindy scrambled to her feet, scooping up her latte as she went. She really didn't want to stop kissing Mark, but she also didn't want to be at the mercy of the elevator if she didn't have to be. She extended a hand and pulled him up, then they both got out of there before the doors could close again. Not that their ten minutes or so of captivity had turned out to be a bad thing.

She looked up at Mark, who was glancing around them and seemed to be having the same thought she was. No matter how much they might want to continue what they'd been doing, they were now surrounded by a floor full of their colleagues. She chewed her bottom lip as her cheeks bloomed with heat, wondering if anyone would be able to tell what had happened just by looking at them.

When his eyes found hers again, they shone with the warmth of their shared secret. "So, uh, how would you feel about exchanging some _intra_ -planetary text messages?"

She nodded thoughtfully, as if considering the idea. "I could do that."

He grinned and dug a business card out of his pocket. "I'm late for a meeting with Kapoor, but here's my number," he said, holding it out to her.

She took it like it was no big deal, like she wasn't _freaking out_ on the inside.

"Very nice to finally meet you in person, Mindy Park," he said with a respectful incline of his head and a twinkle in his eye.

She watched him walk away, trying not to smile too much. "You, too," she murmured to herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Gotta love a rare pair. Thank you so very much for reading, comments always make my day :)


End file.
